Everquest isn't clunky at all if your system isn't 10 yrs old, and you aren't using dial-up. Most of the abilities per class don't even overlap, let alone duplicate. I know you weren't suggesting either, I'm clarifying
It honestly ran well for you? What computer did you have that runs it well?
I bought it when it came out and was very unhappy with the performance, but when I played it again recently with a much better computer it still feels really choppy - even on lowest settings.
I think the issue is they were designing the game to look good well into the future but they did this using old technology with shader model 1 and high polygon count assuming videocards would improve in a "raw power" sort of way, expecting GPUs to be 3GHZ, when they went another way with it keeping GPU cycles about the same while adding fidelity with fancy shader effects.